Terence Young is Oakville’s MP of Southern Ontario, Canada. Located in Halton Region, on Lake Ontario, it is part of the Greater Toronto Area. As of the 2011 census the population was 182,520 making it one of Canada’s largest cities.
The insightful conservative MP Terence Young announced that he has multi-party support from MP’s across Canada for his Private Member’s Bill requiring warning labels on cell phones and Wi-Fi routers wherever they are sold.
MP Terence Young was successful last year in passing a law requiring clearer warnings on pharmaceuticals. His newly introduced Bill will require cell phone radiation safety warnings on all microwave emitting wireless devices sold in Canada.
“The World Health Organization places wireless radiation on the same cancer warning-list as DDT, lead and car exhaust,” said Young. “Canadians have a right to know this.”
Young points out that manufacturers including Blackberry, Motorola and Apple already publish safety warnings about their own devices, but they are not easy to find.
“Their warnings are in fine print, in paper booklets that few people read,” he said. “This new Bill ensures those same warnings will be readable and easy to find, right on the packaging or the device.”
If passed, the government could require all wireless devices sold in Canada to carry radiation warning labels similar to tobacco and alcohol products. Retailers who fail to ensure radiation warnings are affixed to the packages could be fined up to a hundred thousand dollars per day!
Young “became acutely aware of the level of concern” around radio frequency electromagnetic (EM) radiation when he was invited to a meeting regarding a proposed cell phone tower at the former Hopedale Mall (now South Oakville Centre) three years ago.
After reading some of the research on the health concerns caused by cell phone use, Young began working with Citizens for Safe Technology to draft the proposed bill.
The Oakville MP said the warnings are not only meant to serve as a precaution, but also to inform consumers.
In introducing the bill to the Commons, Young said, “Most Canadians are unaware that these devices not only receive, but broadcast electromagnetic radiation, which has been classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as possibly carcinogenic, and that the length of time of use near or touching the body may increase health risks.
“This legislation would require manufactures to place warnings that are now buried in tiny booklets few users ever read, on the outside packaging of their products.”
Young has changed his own cell phone habits since becoming aware of some of the research. He uses land lines to return calls whenever possible, he texts more often in place of making calls, he will put his phone on a desk and use hands-free whenever possible, he tries to limit the length of his cell phone calls when he has to hold it to his ear and he puts it on airplane mode (in which phones don’t emit a signal) at night.
Oakville’s Frank Clegg, founder of Citizens for Safe Technology, said the MP’s support will give the initiative a better chance of succeeding.
“It’s incredible. It’s a strong statement on his part,” he said. “Working with him to make our case to the federal government, it will draw attention to this and help educate Canadians.”
Young pointed to two historical cases — shoe stores using x-ray machines to help fit shoes in the 1930s and cigarettes being prescribed by doctors in the 1950s — where there were not believed to be adverse health effects.
[pullquote]“This time there’s no excuse,” he said, noting there’s lots of evidence to support the possibility cell phones could cause brain cancer. “It’s time to act to empower Canadians to make informed decisions.”[/pullquote]
Young has had success with private member’s bills in the past. Last year, Vanessa’s Law was passed requiring drug companies to clearly list potential health risks, requiring the reporting of adverse drug reactions and giving the government more power to recall unsafe products. Vanessa’s Law started as a private member’s bill.
It was named after Young’s daughter, who died in 2000. She had been taking a drug linked to 80 deaths, yet the family was never informed.
Young said that experience will help.
“It’s a process,” he said. “You have to win people over, sometimes one at a time.”
Young has already started that process. He brought in Dr. Magna Havas, an associate professor of environmental and resource studies at Trent University to speak to a group of MPs about the potential dangers associated with cell phone usage.
Electro-sensitivity Is Real! Headaches, Confusion, and a Spectrum of Disorders – like most allergens not everyone is affected immediately, some not at all. However, cumulative effects of microwave exposure regardless if you’re sensitive to it or not — damage is being done!
John Coates, Founder of RF Safe in 1998, has dealt with thousands of people suffering with ES over nearly two decades — he has often suggested those with electro-sensitivity, while debilitating in a wireless world are the lucky ones, as their bodies were Blessed with an early warning system to the damaged that is being done from exposure to microwave radiation.
Steve Ross, an editor at Broadband Communities Magazine, cited a dearth of double blind challenge tests that support electrosensitivity, but he was also “willing to bet there are some people who are sensitive to some frequencies.”
Medical literature typically aims at helping a physician cope with patients who report symptoms associated with radio waves. Some medical professionals are said to acknowledge the phenomenon of hypersensitivity, but others believe it is psychosomatic or fictitious. An abstract of an article by S.J Genuis at the University of Alberta, Canada, in the journal Science of Total Environment, reports, “Electromagnetic hypersensitivity: fact or fiction? Various organizations, including the World Health Organization as well as some nation states are carefully exploring this clinical phenomenon in order to better explain the rising prevalence of non-specific, multi-system, often debilitating symptoms” associated with the electromagnetic exposure. The author concludes that the literature is sparse and the condition perplexing.
Prescribed remedy: Smart use of quiet zones and more research would seem to be very much in order.